Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce

Fraser competed in the Inter-Secondary Schools Boys and Girls Championships and won bronze in the 100 m at age 16, despite being unsure about pursuing a career in athletics.  She won the 200 m race in 25.35 seconds at the Jamaican Under-18 Championships in 2002 and later that year, in Bridgetown, Barbados, she assisted the Jamaican junior team in winning the 4 X  100 m relay gold at the Central American and Caribbean Junior Championships.

In 2007, Fraser started to flourish on senior national and international levels. At the Jamaican National Senior Championships in June, she placed fifth in the 100 m at the age of 20, with a new personal best of 11.31 seconds. Even though her fifth-place finish disqualified her from competing in the 100 m event at the 2007 Osaka World Championships, she was chosen as a reserve for Jamaica’s 4 X 100 m relay squad. 2008 was a startling and unexpected breakthrough for Fraser-Pryce. She unexpectedly placed second in the fiercely contested 100-meter final at the Jamaican Olympic trials in June, clocking in at 10.85 seconds, her first-ever sub-11-second time.

With Fraser hardly recognized in the Jamaican athletics landscape, several people deemed her inexperienced for the Olympics and petitioned the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) to switch her for Campbell-Brown. The JAAA, however, adhered to its policy of only allowing the team’s best three finishers to compete. As a result, she entered the Beijing Olympics as a dark horse.

Fraser defeated the American trio of Torri Edwards, Muna Lee, and veteran sprinter Lauryn Williams in her heat, quarterfinal, and semi-final at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In the 100 m final, she led a Jamaican sweep of the medals, trailed by Sherone Simpson and Kerron Stewart, who both ran 10.98 seconds for silver. She created Olympic history by being the first-ever Caribbean woman to win the 100-meter gold medal. Her winning time of 10.78 seconds was also the second fastest in Olympic history at the time, trailing only Florence Griffith Joyner’s Olympic record set in 1988. She has won eight Olympic medals to date, out of which four were gold. She is one of the most decorated athletes in history of the World Athletics Championships, having won ten gold and four silver medals.

The net worth of the world’s one of the most decorated track and field athletes’ Shelly-Ann Fraser Pryce is estimated to be approximately $4 million. She has endorsement deals with brands like Puma, HUMBL, Digicel, Grace Kennedy, and Nike.

Shelly-Ann Fraser was born in Kingston, Jamaica on December 27, 1986 to Orane Fraser and Maxine Simpson. Fraser grew up in Kingston’s impoverished and violent Waterhouse neighborhood. She was raised by her mother along with her two brothers, who made a living as an unauthorized street vendor. She was a gifted sprinter from an early age and began running barefoot in elementary school. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to pursue a career in track and field the entire time when she was a student at Wolmer’s High School for Girls.

Shelly-Ann Fraser married her long-term boyfriend Jason Pryce in January 2011 at The Tryall Club in Hanover. Pryce and Shelly-Ann met in 2007 while Pryce was studying at Kingston’s University of Technology, where Shelly-Ann was also a student. They have a son named Zyon Pryce. She made her pregnancy public at the start of 2017 and in August, she gave birth to a boy.